This invention relates, generally, to innovations and improvements in devices for retaining and guarding cotter pins in place after their insertion in cotter pin receiving apertures extending transversely through the shanks of pins or bolts such, for example, as brake pins used in the railroad car industry.
Cotter pins have long been used as a means for securing pins and bolts in place in a variety of settings. A primary example has been the use of cotter pins for retaining brake pins in place in railroad car brake riggings. Such brake pins may range in size from 1 3/32 inch shank diameter up to 1 11/32 inch shank diameter and have small transverse apertures large enough to receive the shanks of cotter pins. After a cotter pin has been inserted in a brake pin and spread it serves to prevent the pin from being inadvertently removed from the parts which it is relied on to interconnect. However, there are instances in which cotter pins fail to perform their intended retaining and securing function. For example, a workman may fail to spread apart the halves of a cotter pin shank. In such cases, in the absence of a retainer and guard, it is usually only a matter of time before an unspread cotter pin will fall out of place. The loss of a cotter pin occurs sufficiently often so that this possibility creates a safety problem particularly where a cotter pin is being used in connection with a pin or bolt which is being relied upon to connect or secure together parts which create an unsafe condition if inadvertently disconnected.
The object of the present invention, generally stated, is the provision of an inexpensive, mass-producible cotter pin retainer and guard which will prevent the inadvertent or accidental removal of a cotter pin after it has been inserted in a pin or bolt.